OPPapers.com

Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos Islands
Christy Bosley
Axia College of University of Phoenix
SCI 230
Angela Buffington
March 16, 2008


The Galapagos Islands
The Archipelago de Colon is better known as the Galapagos Islands, who got their name from the Spanish word galapago. This word means “saddle” and refers to the shells of one of the islands’ most famous inhabitants, the Galapagos Giant Tortoise (Wikipedia, n.d.). The Galapagos Islands are a group of volcanic islands located about six hundred miles from Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. This series of islands was the very first World Heritage Site chosen by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, UNESCO (Nelson, 2007).
An excellent example of this “adaptive radiation” is Darwin’s Finches. In fact, it was his study of these birds which led Charles Darwin to describe this phenomenon. As Darwin explored the Galapagos while on board the survey ship HMS Beagle, he noticed that each island he visited had a different type of bird. To Darwin, it appeared that the islands were inhabited by many widely-varying species of birds (Wikipedia, n.d.). Upon his return to England, Darwin carefully analyzed his specimens. A bird specialist at the Natural History Museum, John Gould, told Darwin that all of them were finches. This led Darwin to speculate that all of the species arose from a few, or perhaps only one, bird who had arrived at one of the islands at some time in the past (Nebraska Citizens For Science, 2005).
Darwin’s Finches are about the size of a sparrow and similar in appearance except for their beaks, which are specialized according to how they are used. The size and shape of the various beaks indicate the diet of the bird. About 13 species of finch inhabit the Galapagos Islands (Galapagos Online, 1999). The Galapagos Giant Tortoise also shows how differences can arise when a species develops in isolation. There are 13...